1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a report creation support apparatus and report creation support method for supporting creation of a medical report, and a program therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image diagnosis in which medical staff, including doctors, observes medical images for diagnosis and provides findings, reports, or the like is performed. Digitization of findings or reports using computers, instead of papers, is underway in medical institutions to improve work efficiency and to facilitate the services. In addition, a system that includes electronic reports in a common server, accessible from a plurality of terminals, to allow a plurality of doctors to share the medical reports is proposed.
It is often the case that such reports are entered in free-form texts, and are created while observing displayed medical images. Therefore, it takes time and effort to create the reports. Consequently, a method for reducing the burden of creating the reports is proposed as described, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2005-160502. In the method, sample texts for describing medical images are stored in association with the accompanying information, including the types of imaging devices used for obtaining the medical images, regions, examination dates and times, patient identifications, and the like, then a sample text is automatically selected from these samples based on the accompanying information, and the features of a lesion in a medical image are applied to the selected sample text to create a report of the medical image. Further, the method allows created sample texts and reports to be edited, and use of past reports of patients.
The method described above, however, uses past reports of the same patient, so that the report needs to be modified largely according to the progression of the lesion. Further, the past reports of the same patient are not always useful, depending on the progression of the disease.
In the mean time, if the features of lesions appearing on medical images are similar to each other, it is often the case that similar reports are created. Further, when performing diagnosis, it is often the case that a similar image is retrieved from the medical images obtained in the past, and a report for the patient is provided by referring to the case of the retrieved image.